4 o6 FAMILY CURCULIONIDAE 



antennae are not inserted right at top of rostrum in $, but 

 a little way down it ; are set with hair ; scape thick, thickening 

 anteriorly, slightly arched ; funiculus with joints I and 2 sub-equal, 

 third to seventh short, and the club oval-oblong and pointed at its 

 extremity and jointed. Eyes large, only slightly convex, oval- 

 oblong, oblique. Prothorax rather narrow, straight in front, trans- 

 verse, the sides gently rounded, base truncate ; coarsely punctate, 

 with a rounded fovea on each side behind the middle. Elytra 

 oblong-oval, wider than prothorax, widening posteriorly, and deflexed 

 at their apices, which meet in a point ; brown in colour, with a dull 

 white transverse band in their posterior third ; the striae strongly 

 punctate. Legs moderately long, thighs thickened and ending in a 

 little spine beneath ; tarsus very hairy beneath, third joint much 

 broader than first and second. Body oblong. $ more yellow in 

 colour, without the white transverse patch on elytra, and with 

 Crt S>''-t ) j t ' ie Slden snort st iff hairs much thicker on elytra. Antennae 

 pannosus, Mshl., sp.'nov. inserted at top of rostrum. Length, $4.7 mm. ; $ 5.9111111. The 

 Berar ; Damoh. figure shows a dorsal and side view of this insect. 



This insect appears on the wing in Berar in July, probably generally 

 about the time the monsoon bursts. It feeds upon the 



Life History. leaves of the teak-tree. Either the life of the beetle is a 

 somewhat lengthy one, or the eggs develop at irregular 

 periods, since a month later the weevils were found common in the Damoh 

 forests in the Central Provinces in igoi. 



In Berar the beetles were noticed pairing on 26 July, the insects being 

 very numerous on the teak-trees, both young and old being infested. 



In the middle of August the weevils were found in a similar condition 

 in the Damoh forests. On the 2oth of the month I noted the beetle as 

 equally numerous in the Jubbulpore Division between Jubbulpore and Luck- 

 needown. Here, as in the portions of Damoh visited, the beetle was far 

 more numerous during this month than either of the teak-leaf defoliators 

 Hybln'ii pncra or Pyrausta machceralis, which were present with it on the trees. 



In Berar (in the Melghat Forest) the weevil had an additional companion 

 in the larva of the hawk moth Pseudosphinx discistriga, and was in parts very 

 much more abundant than the latter, although it was not noted as ascending 

 quite so high into the hills as the sphinx. In this locality both the sphinx 

 and the weevil were more plentiful than the Hyblcea and Pyransta. Its 

 method of defoliation is as equally distinct from that of the hawk moth 

 as from that of the Hyblcea and Pyransta. The weevil attacks the leaf in 

 two ways : either by eating out patches from somewhere within the leaf, 

 avoiding the edges, so that the leaf becomes full of irregular-shaped holes, 

 the larger veins being always left untouched, or it eats out irregular portions 

 from the edges, the latter having thus a ragged and frayed appearance. In 

 both cases the edge left by this beetle always has this frayed and ragged 

 appearance, owing presumably to the very small portions of leaf tissue it is 

 able to take out at a time in the case of so thick a leaf as the teak leaf. The 

 patches eaten out by this weevil can thus be easily distinguished from those 



